Two different disciplines, same principles and just the same amount of testosterone. In one you do everything to go in a straight line, the other you do everything to avoid going in a straight line. High horsepower, extra high fuel consumption and even higher amount of adrenaline.
Drag Racing was born all the way back into the Henry Ford days (The man who made the first mass production car, the Ford Model T). Since then, cars have been widely spread to a variety of people and naturally there were some keen drivers willing to find out who can drive their car better then the driver in the other lane. Once that idea was set, drag racing began to spread to abandoned or uninhabited areas such as the dry lake beds. This idea got so popular that eventually it led to a safe environment where participants would race head to head down a traditional quarter of a mile or 400m. The one to get to the end of the strip the fastest wins. Simple enough. Right up to the point where losers started juicing their rides to give more power and create machines like no other to eventually beat their opponents. Think big American Muscle cars, with a V8 of course. As long as you have a car whether it’s front, rear or all wheel drive, you can customise by putting the biggest engine you can fit in it, super-turbo-charge it, maybe a bottle of nitrous, bolt on super sticky rubber, enter a competition.
Easy enough. Get a car, find a set of lights, do a burnout, wait for them to go green, get your shifting points spot on and get to the end first. Just make sure you go dead straight.
Drifting is the art of making a car look like its lost control, but yet it’s in complete control. Drifting (one of the fastest growing form of motorsport) can be seen as far back as the 1930’s. When really old Grand Prix cars were seen gently sliding around corners or a particular corner on the track. A technique used in the 1970’s Japan Touring Car Championship, where a particular driver would hit the entry point of the corner and slide his car right through to the exit in high speed emitting huge amounts of smoke from the rear tyres. One particular driver saw this and decided to take his very own Toyota AE86 up a deserted mountain pass (till this day, it’s the basic drift principal) and started practising to perfect his side ways skills. Willing to prove a point he made a video “Pluspy” which also got his license suspended. One racing driver after another began to flock up there with their very own cars such as the popular Mazda RX-7, or Nissan 200 SX, to practise the art of drifting. Once the professionals started doing it, so did the street racer and today that’s one recipe no one can take away from whoever decides to go give it a try. There are many championships worldwide that judge a drift by the entry speed, angle of entry into a corner and car control even tandem where two cars slide side by side.
Drift machines are unique as the person controlling it. A car like no other, made from other car parts into a special made combo. Sort of like Mexican chilli nachos with Swiss cheese and Italian ice cream all shoved into one bowl. Very explosive just by the smell and makes you lose control. Unique recipe, so find the space, have a car that can throw its arse out and then don’t crash. Simple.
Two different worlds, two different disciplines, yet completely different taste but they share the same principle. Drive hard and live free.
JohnV
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